Banana Peanut Butter Oatmeal Muffins

Banana bread is a classic that I will always keep coming back to. It’s easy, it uses up those pesky overripe bananas, and it can be made in any number of variations. This is something of a variation on it, although I opted for a muffin form rather than a bread. These Banana Peanut Butter Oatmeal Muffins were inspired by a description of some muffins a friend tasted over 20 years ago. As you might imagine, those muffins involved peanut butter and banana – and made quite an impact to be remembered so many years later.! Of course, I have no way of knowing if these are anything like the original muffins, but they are quite tasty in their own right.

The muffins get most of their flavor from mashed bananas and peanut butter, with bananas being the primary flavor and peanut butter adding some unexpected richness. Just slightly overripe bananas add a lot of natural sweetness, but I also added some brown sugar to the muffins to emphasize it. Since my friend mentioned that her remembered-muffins had a little bit of texture to them, I was tempted to add in some bran to make them a bit coarser. Instead, I opted to add some quick cooking oatmeal which opened up the crumb a little and added a hint of nuttiness to complement the banana. The muffins are moist, and surprisingly light and fluffy on the inside – not heavy like bran muffins, or dense like many banana breads.

The muffins are filling, but you can probably eat two at a time without too much of a problem. These are great when topped with butter or extra peanut butter, and are very tasty when soft, fresh and eaten plain.

Preheat oven to 375F. Lightly grease a 12-cup muffin tin.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, oatmeal, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
In a medium bowl, whisk together vegetable oil, brown sugar, eggs, mashed banana, peanut butter and buttermilk until very smooth, making sure all egg has been well-incorporated. Pour into flour mixture and stir until no streaks of flour remain.
Divide batter evenly into prepared muffin tin, filling each just about up to the top.
Bake for 16-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and the top springs back when lightly pressed.
Remove muffins from tin and cool on a wire rack.

Yummy! Must be something in the air, I was just over at Sugar Plum (www.visionsofsugarplum.com) and she has an amazing looking recipe–for a contest, no less-for Oatmeal Banana Bread Drop Doughnuts with Peanut Butter Glaze. Now I might have to make both!

I’ve been reading your site for a few weeks now and love it. I just made these muffins this morning. They were perfect for a lazy, raining weekend morning and were good to eat warm right out of the oven!

I was really really excited about this recipe, so I finally made it last night, and I have to say I was disappointed. I used fresh, natural peanut butter with no sugar or salt, and I think that may have been what caused my muffins to be extremely bland. Also, sub buttermilk with half plain yogurt and half milk.

I was really looking forward to healthy muffins. So i tried this recipe, and used half plain yogurt half milk instead of buttermilk. As i had no in the house. I must say i was little dissapointed. Didn’t taste like banana neither peanut butter was little bit plain. Could it be that i did smth wrong?!
thank you anyway for your recipe.

These sound teriffic. Thanks so much for sharing. By the way, who hasn’t heard of peanut butter with bannanas? Is it only an American thing?
Two questions – what would you use to make it non -dairy instead of buttermilk – would almond milk work? I don’t mind increasing the oil, if that would help.
Also, alternatives to sugar? would honey or maple syrup work?

OK – I make banana muffins all the time for my kids when the bananas get too ripe. Why did I never think about adding peanut butter??? Sounds delicious and I have some extra bananas that are of perfect ripeness! Can’t wait to try this.